Haryana Steelers continued their winning run at home as they dismantled U Mumba to clinch a 46-40 win in the Pro Kabaddi League in Panchkula on Saturday.
Haryana Steelers’ Vishal Tate, making his PKL Debut, was the star of the game with 15 raid points while Naveen Kundu completed a High 5.
In the second game of the day, Gujarat Giants recorded a comfortable 36-29 victory over a struggling U.P. Yoddhas to move to fourth place in the standings.
Haryana Steelers’ starting seven featured plenty of fresh faces and they made the most of the opportunity as Ghanshyam Magar put the home side 6-4 ahead.
Haryana Steelers needed only 6 minutes to bag the 1st all-out, which was followed by a brilliant super raid from U Mumba’s Rohit Yadav.
U Mumba fought back and had Haryana Steelers on the cusp of an all-out as they had just 1 man left on the mat, but Vishal turned around the complexion of the game. He came up with 2 incredible super raids to bring his side back into the game and U Mumba captain Guman Singh was tackled soon after as Haryana Steelers clinched an all-out much against the run of play. With 5 minutes left, the home side led 26-13. Haryana Steelers had twice as many points as U Mumba at the break as the scoreline read 30-15.
U Mumba made a solid start to the 2nd half as Jai Bhagwan came off the bench to his team’s rescue. He ran through the Haryana Steelers' defence and even had a multi-point raid to his name as U Mumba clinched an all-out in the 23rd minute.
The Mumbai team stepped it up a notch after that and needed just 5 more minutes for another all-out as they clawed their way back into the game. Jai got the better of Naveen Kundu and Mohit Nandal to inflict the all-out as they trailed by just 3 points at 35-38. U Mumba scored 17 points, as compared to the Haryana Steelers’ 7, in the 20th-30th minute.
While U Mumba did remarkably well to reduce their deficit, they ran out of ideas at the end as Haryana Steelers secured a 6-point victory.
Gujarat Giants beat UP Yoddhas
Parteek Dahiya (12 points) and Deepak Singh (6 points) starred for the Giants on opposite ends of the mat.
In a low-scoring first quarter of the game, the two teams remained neck-in-neck. Despite having taken an early lead, the Giants were pegged back by some dogged defending from UP Yoddhas, who despite being out of playoff contention played with a lot of pride and energy.
Just as the Giants seemed to have gained some momentum in the second quarter of the game, an outrageous super tackle by Hitesh on Parteek Dahiya stopped them in their tracks once again. With seconds of the half left to play, Dahiya's super raid to take out Gulveer Singh, Sumit and Hitesh, meant the Yoddhas were left with one player on the mat. The Giants went into the break leading 15-13.
The Giants inflicted a first all-out within seconds of the restart, to finally put a gap between them and the Yoddhas. Dahiya's brilliance meant the Giants' scoreboard kept ticking throughout the half and they followed up with a second all-out to take a 10-point lead at 31-21.
The Giants played the final quarter of the game keeping the Yoddhas at distance, but never really overextending themselves either. Despite a late Yoddhas fightback, it was too little too late as the Giants took home a valuable victory.